Sunday, March 20, 2016

A QUICK, SPICY FULL-MEAL BLACK BEAN AND SWEET POTATO SOUP

You might have noticed that I haven't been posting much for the last few months. Since I retired from the library where I worked for 36 years, I have been slowly trying to weed out my belongings and re-organize the storage in our small house-- particularly in my office, closets and the kitchen. So, that has kept me busy. But, aside from that, my husband and I are striving to eat less and to eat more simply-- not just because of reduced income, but also because we are getting older and need to keep an eye on our health. We are both well and active, but need to lose some weight.

Consequently, we eat homemade soup almost every day for lunch (sometimes we switch it up and have soup for dinner and a more substantial meal at lunchtime). We also eat bean dishes frequently. The following recipe is a variation on one that I wrote for Dr. Neal Bernard's Program for Reversing Heart Disease (I developed almost all of the recipes in that book.-- all virtually fat-free, low in sodium, high-fiber, vegan.) It has remained a favorite over the years and is so easy to make. (I cook my own beans of various kinds and freeze them in 2-cup quantities.) I hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do.

Mix together the beans, broth, tomato paste, vinegar, soy sauce, salt, garlic granules, allspice, and thyme in a blender or food processor. Puree briefly. (You can also do this inside the soup pot with a hand immersion blender.) Pour into a medium-sized pot.

Add the bay leaf, crumbled vegan sausage, green onions, and sweet potato. Bring to a boil, stirring now and then. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. (Or you could cook this in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot for about 7 minutes, and use natural pressure release for at least 10 minutes.) Serve hot.

NOTE: for the garnish shown in the photos, have some cooked brown rice ready and kept warm -- short grain is great for this because it is stickier than long grain. When you have the soup served out in wide bowls or soup plates, pack a 1/2-cup measuring cup (rinsed with water before using) with the rice, pressing down so that it is compact. Overturn the measuring cup over the soup, tapping the bottom of the cup to dislodge the packed rice intact. (You may need to use a knife to help dislodge it from the cup, but I've never had a mishap with this. This time I used a straight-sided measuring cup, but a slope-sided cup makes a pretty mound and the rice may be easier to dislodge from it.) Repeat for all the servings.

This looks delicious Bryanna. We eat a lot of soup too. It's comfort food to me. Question: can I purchase archived copies of your Vegan Feast newsletter? Just bought the kindle version of World Vegan Feast in hopes of finding a particular recipe of yours but no luck:(

Bryanna, I was interested in your herb crusted pork tenderloin seitan roast. Pork tenderloin was my father's favorite and I'm hosting several of my siblings for the 10 year anniversary of his death next month. I'd love to serve them all a special memory meal but cruelty free:) The photo of yours on your blog is gorgeous! I'd read that it was in the Jan-Feb-Mar 2006 newsletter. If it's possible id love to PayPal you for that newsletter!

Thanks for sharing this recipe. Looks like I'm going to be headed out for some groceries after work and straight into the kitchen to try and whip a bowl of this stuff up! My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

ABOUT MISSING PHOTOS ON OLDER BLOG POSTS:

If you are wondering what happened to the photos on my older blog posts, here's the deal: I used to use Photobucket to store my photos and uploaded them to my blog posts from there. Since about 2012, I have uploaded pics from my computer files instead. All of a sudden, Photobucket is demanding $39 a month for storage and you can't download pictures to blogs or other sites unless you pay that. I find that fee outrageous (and I'm not the only one!). UPDATE: I discovered that I could upload albums from from PB to my computer (or external hard drive). So, I have done that, but it took a couple of days. Now I just have to locate the correct pictures for the old blogs! One step at a time. My apologies... please bear with me! BCG

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No reproduction of the following material without permission from the author. If you would like to share any of my recipes with others, or on a forum, or another site, let me know, and please credit me, my website and the book the recipe appeared in, if I note that in the recipe. You are welcome to link to this page from your site. Thanks!